Moshtagh Khorasani, Manouchehr (2010). Persian Swordmakers (Armeiros Persas). In: Rites of Power: Oriental Arms (Rituais de Poder: Armas Orientais), Casal de Cambra: Caleidoscópio, pp. 41-55. (original) (raw)
Related papers
IJAS (Iranian Journal of Archaeological Studies), 2023
The following article analyzes a classical highly-curved Persian šamšir (sword) that is kept in the Malek Library Museum in Tehran, Iran. The blade is highly-curved, has a wedge shape, and a flat fuller. However, the typical style of most highly-curved Persian sword blades has no fullers. The blade is made of patterned crucible steel (pulād-e gŏhardār). Persian patterned crucible steel was considered one of the best types of steel not only in Iran but also in other countries. Based on the pattern and visisble structures of the surface of the blade, patterned crucible steel was classified into different categories. The crucible steel pattern on this example is pulād-e jŏhardār-e xati that means "lined watered steel. The blade has a gold-overlaid maker's mark of Assadollāh Isfahāni and also carries the name of Šāh Abbās. These are integrated in four gold-overlaid inscriptions on the obverse side of the blade. The upper cartouche reads: Al-Soltān Šāh Abbās (the ruler Šāh Abbās), the upper middle cartouche is a bodduh (a magic square), the lower middle cartouche reads: Amal-e Assadollāh (the work of Assadollāh), and the lower cartouche reads: Isfahāni. The inscriptions seem to be later additions to the blade. The crossguard is made of patterned crucible steel and pierced in floral and geometric designs on both sides. The scabbard chape is made of steel. The handle scales are made of bone. The wooden scabbard is a new replacement covered with new leather. The general dimensions of the saber follow many historical examples.
New light on old swords from Iran
The British Museum Technical Research Bulletin, 2010
Joint paper with Dr S. La Niece on the results of scientific analyses of two different classes of sword considered typical of the Iranian Iron Age. The results prove that one well-known class is a pastiche invented by the art market, and the other is also represented in some collections by pastiches which have been incorrectly interpreted as evidence for a novel, but non-functional, form of bimetallic sword technology.
An Analysis of a Šamšir (Sword) in the Malek Library Museum in Tehran, Iran
Iranian Journal of Archaeological Studies, 2023
The following article analyzes a classical highly-curved Persian šamšir (sword) that is kept in the Malek Library Museum in Tehran, Iran. The blade is highly-curved, has a wedge shape, and a flat fuller. However, the typical style of most highly-curved Persian sword blades has no fullers. The blade is made of patterned crucible steel (pulād-e gŏhardār). Persian patterned crucible steel was considered one of the best types of steel not only in Iran but also in other countries. Based on the pattern and visisble structures of the surface of the blade, patterned crucible steel was classified into different categories. The crucible steel pattern on this example is pulād-e jŏhardār-e xati that means “lined watered steel. The blade has a gold-overlaid maker’s mark of Assadollāh Isfahāni and also carries the name of Šāh Abbās. These are integrated in four gold-overlaid inscriptions on the obverse side of the blade. The upper cartouche reads: Al-Soltān Šāh Abbās (the ruler Šāh Abbās), the upper middle cartouche is a bodduh (a magic square), the lower middle cartouche reads: Amal-e Assadollāh (the work of Assadollāh), and the lower cartouche reads: Isfahāni. The inscriptions seem to be later additions to the blade. The crossguard is made of patterned crucible steel and pierced in floral and geometric designs on both sides. The scabbard chape is made of steel. The handle scales are made of bone. The wooden scabbard is a new replacement covered with new leather. The general dimensions of the saber follow many historical examples.
Christopher P. Thornton and Vincent C. Pigott 2011 Blade-type Weaponry of Hasanlu Period IV, Iran
2011
The destruction level of Hasanlu Period IVB has provided archaeologists with a rare glimpse of a specific moment in time—a Pompeian horizon from which surrounding chronological and spatial contexts can be deduced. !e thousands of artifacts that have been extracted from this layer provide many possibilities for understanding the behavioral and socio-political history of northwestern Iran in the late 9th century BC. Given the violent nature of the sacking of Hasanlu at the hands of a still-unidentified foe or foes, it is not surprising that weaponry makes up a large part of the archaeological assemblage. Previous studies of this category of artifact (Dyson 1964; de Schauensee 1988:54–55; Muscarella 1989; Pigott 1989) have provided useful information on both the chronology of the site and the possible identification of the groups involved in the tragic battle captured so gruesomely by the buildings’ collapse. As the artifact class most likely to have been developed quickly by competing polities who then used their armaments as visual symbols of their own elite status, weaponry offers one of the best potential avenues for exploring questions of intercultural relations, technological innovation, and group identities. Hasanlu provides one of the largest stratigraphically controlled corpuses of proto-historic weaponry from the Iron Age of Southwest Asia. Thus, this corpus has the potential to shed new light on the various studies of weapons from clandestine excavations in northern and western Iran published by Godard (1931), Moorey (1974), DeWaele (1982), Haerinck (1988), Khorasani (2006), and others. Despite some early attention paid to the weapons and armaments found at Hasanlu (e.g., Dyson 1964), a catalogue of the Iron Age II (1100–ca. 800 BC) blade-type weaponry (swords, daggers, spearheads, and arrowheads) has not previously been published. This chapter presents the corpus of copper/bronze, iron, bone, and lithic blade-type weapons from all proto-historic periods at Hasanlu in order to help facilitate future discussions on the development of armaments in this region, the evidence for long-distance contact in Period IVB and preceding periods, and the potential characters at play in the sacking and defense of Hasanlu.